


Remembering

by ByTheDawn



Series: 300challenge [12]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByTheDawn/pseuds/ByTheDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the #300Challenge, based off of the title prompt. How Henry got his memories back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering

The last few weeks had been a confusing mess. One day, everything was fine, mom and him shared a nice apartment in New York City, she was dating a nice enough guy, and he was doing well in school. Then this strange guy with a hook for a hand showed up and suddenly he was in the backseat of a car driving to Storybrooke, Maine, where everyone who saw his mom and him for the first time ended up in tears and stutters. Mom had said it was just a case, that she had been here before after getting out of jail, but it was obvious something more was going on. Meeting the Mayor for the first time had driven that point home well and proper: as soon as Regina had seen his mom, she’d dropped her mug and had just stood there, gaping at both his mom and him. 

Henry wasn’t stupid, he knew very well that sometimes boys liked boys and girls liked girls. When the Mayor came by to ‘meet him’ and he found out that his mom had talked to Mayor Mills about how he was doing in school and what his likes and dislikes were… yeah, he put two and two together pretty fast. His mom had stayed in Storybrooke for a long time and while she had been here, she had dated the Mayor. Timeline wise, that meant that Regina had raised him at least for a while when he was still a baby. 

When Regina suggested to go out for ice-cream together, there was no way in hell he was going to say no. He wanted to know more about the only woman—as far as Henry knew, at least—his mom had ever been involved with… a woman who had raised him and then had to let him go when Emma and her had broken up. That’s what he assumed had happened, anyway.

That night, his mom hadn’t been in the mood to talk, so he’d let it go. Somehow, neither looked very happy to relive the past, but the fact that there was a past was pretty damn obvious: the way his mom looked at Regina was different from anything he’d ever seen—even with Walsh—and although he didn’t know Regina very well, it was obvious she shared Emma’s feelings. Besides, Regina obviously still thought of him as her son, his ice-cream date with her only confirmed the obvious. He could tell when people were looking to hug him or coddle him in any way—he was awesome at dodging these people when they tried—and Regina looked exactly like that. She looked at him like he was the baby she had obviously known and he felt bad for her that his mom had taken him out of her life.

In the following week, he went out of his way to spent time with the Mayor, and she was always grateful when he did. She never turned him down, although she sometimes had to rush off for some emergency he assumed had something to do with either the town, or case, or both. It took him ages to summon up the courage to ask Regina about her and Emma, and even then he hadn’t dared to all-out ask her.

“Regina…?” He had asked while they were sitting in the park, grinning at the ducks while enjoying another ice-cream cone. “You and my mom… you like each other, right?”  
She had smiled at him then, and nodded.

“We didn’t always, but yes, I like Emma. I’m happy she’s back in Storybrooke, and you as well.” She had answered, volunteering more information than he had expected her to volunteer. He allowed the light pat on his leg and tried to formulate his next question.

“What happened between you and mom?” He asked, unsure if he dared to full-on state he knew about their relationship. She had sighed, then, and had taken a moment to formulate her thoughts.

“I had to say goodbye to the two of you. It’s complicated, Henry, and I’m not sure if we should talk about this. Your mother has set some… ground rules for our interactions, and I would not gladly lose the privilege of spending time with you.” She had answered eventually, her voice light and airy, but he could easily read pain behind the words—and a history far more complicated than he had perhaps thought. He’d let it rest, then, because if he was honest, he did not want to lose the time he spent with Regina either; he liked her—she treated him more like an adult than many other people in this town, and she was always willing to listen to his stories or help him with the schoolwork he tried to keep up with despite not being in school at the moment. 

Especially knowing what he knew, it was easy to see Regina as his mom as well, and if he was truthful, he kind of liked the thought. She seemed to get him, seemed to get the introspective parts of him that Emma understood but didn’t really relate to. Spending time with Regina was easy and fun, and he wondered what would have happened if he had been raised by the both of them; if he had grown up here.

They grew closer easily; Regina was a very closed off individual with everyone but him and Emma, and although they didn’t talk about it after that first time, they both seemed to accept that they were safe with each other. Regina didn’t tell him much about herself, but she allowed him to explore her world; he visited her office, joined her for a tour of Storybrooke’s landmarks, and he even got to visit her home—although she only showed him the first floor. 

He liked it best when she slipped up—when she talked about places he loved to visit, for example. After begging her for three days straight, she took him to a secluded place at the end of the bay, overlooking the water. It was a quiet place, a beautiful place, but Henry watched Regina more than the scenery. It obviously pained her to take him here.

“Did… did we come here a lot?” He asked softly. It took a while for Regina to answer, but when she did, there was a smile on her face as she brought her hands together in front of her body.

“We did, when you were a lot younger.” She replied, and he smiled up at her before turning away to finally take in the scenery. 

“Did my mo—did Emma come with us?” He asked, feeling the need to correct himself. Emma was his mother, of course, she had given birth to him, raised him, but Regina… well… she was his mother a little bit too, and it felt weird to diminish that status by using ‘mom’ to address his, well, biological mother. He puzzled over the correct way to address both women so deeply, he missed the pause in Regina’s answer. When she finally spoke, he spooked a little.

“No… this spot was just for us.” She said, and for once, she couldn’t hide her emotions behind her neutral tonality, although her face was a mask when he looked up at her. He wondered how much it had hurt her to let Emma go—to let him go—and figured it must have hurt a lot. Sympathetically, he reached out for her hand, carefully studying her face to make sure she wouldn’t mind the touch, and slipped his hand into hers. 

She froze only a moment, then let her hands fall to her sides, holding on to his hand with as much force as she thought she could get away with; the tremble he felt run through her and the tears that sprung to her eyes once more drove home how much she had obviously missed him. She swallowed with difficulty and refused to meet his eyes. Instead, she looked out over the water and he followed her example. It felt good to hold her hand—strangely familiar—and it made him feel safe.

“I’m sorry my mom took me away from you.” He eventually said softly, and she squeezed his hand a little tighter for a moment.

“There was no another way. I told her to go, to make a good life for herself and for you. She did, and I am very grateful to her for that. She took very good care of you… I couldn’t have done any better.” She admitted softly, and he realized she was picking her words very carefully. Truthfully, he was getting a little tired of being told only half of the story, but his mom was shutting down any questions and Regina… well… Regina was respecting Emma’s wishes. At least Regina tried to answer his questions the best she could. 

They walked back to the car hand in hand, and it didn’t feel weird at all. It probably would have felt weird if she had just been the Mayor and he some kid who wandered into her town—as his mom had tried to make him believe—but he knew without a doubt they had once been much more than that. She had once been family—he was sure of it—and so it wasn’t weird that they drove to the inn where Emma and he were staying while chatting about comics she knew far more about than he would have given her credit for, and talking about computer games she admitted she liked to play. It wasn’t weird when she walked him to the door of their room, and when he hugged her, it was only a little weird—but mostly because it seemed to affect her so. 

He smiled up at her when she lifted his chin after pulling back from the hug, and met eyes that were cloudy with emotion she seemed to have difficulty supressing. He tried to imagine how she saw him—the son who had returned after so many years—and when she leaned down to give him a soft kiss on his hair, he happily leaned into it. The hand on the back of his head felt familiar and welcoming, and he relaxed at the comfort the gesture conveyed. It was good to be loved—and it was that moment that he realized he loved her, too. He had loved her ever since he quietly came to accept her as his second mom.

Warmth welled up in his chest until it threatened to break out of him, and when it did, he was shocked to the core. The soft yellow shockwave that burst forth not only from _him_ , but from _Regina_ as well took his breath away, and as they pulled away from each other in shock, a flood of images—memories—filled his head. He remembered looking up at Regina from his crib, walking towards her in her yard on legs that had only just learned how to walk, he remembered countless of drop-offs and pick-ups at school, remembered apple pies and game nights, and finding out she was the Evil Queen. He remembered therapy sessions attempting to cure him of something he couldn’t be cured of because it was the truth, and running away to collect Emma—Emma who had never been in a relationship with Regina—and everything that had happened after. He remembered saying goodbye to her at the town’s edge, and felt the pain of leaving her and everyone else he loved all over again.

Regina’s eyes were searching him, her mouth slightly agape. With wild eyes, he examined her, took in every bit of her, and flung himself into her arms, grabbing on to her as if his life depended on it. She sunk to her knees easily, and shifted him along her torso until he could wrap his arms around her neck and she could wrap him up entirely. 

“Mom…” He whispered and she clung to him tighter, holding him as he now _remembered_ being held. 

“I remember. I remember!” He added excitedly, finding his voice choked and shaky at the flood of memories and emotions that still tried to find a place in his brain alongside the memories he now remembered weren’t real—only they were. They lined up almost perfectly, just with a different parent, a different school, a different place. It were _her _memories Regina had altered to give Emma a place in his life as his mother. He felt a stab of pain at realizing Emma had abandoned him when he was still a baby, but then twelve years of memories—both real and magicked into existence—squashed that thought: Emma loved him, and Regina loved him, and they were both his moms.__

__“I love you.” Regina whispered into his hair, and he smiled through the tears he suddenly became aware of that were staining his face as he buried it tighter into her shoulder, inhaling a scent he now remembered so well._ _

__“I love you, too.” He whispered equally emotionally, and let the memories overtake him, let them knit together like puzzle pieces, as he clung to the woman who had, indeed, given him a good life—twice over, even—and if he had any say in it, he was going to make her life good as well, starting with getting her together with his other mom… because that was definitely long overdue!_ _


End file.
